7 ways to use images to boost your SEO ranking
A successful digital marketing strategy is held up by the strength of your SEO: here are 7 ways you can use images to boost your SEO ranking. Whether you are…
You only get one chance to make a first impression; and that’s why speed matters when it comes to your website.
In fact, it arguably plays the most important role in your SEO ranking. Without it, your content, metadata, images and keywords are pretty redundant.
Research by the Aberdeen Group found that a 1 second delay in a page load time could result in:
One second! That means your faster competitors are just one quick click away.
And it isn’t just about keeping potential customers on your page: speed is now an actual ranking factor with Google. Since seeing how much speed affects user experience, the search engine has made it a high priority factor when deciding how high up they’re going to place your site.
In a nutshell? You can’t escape it. The need for speed is here to stay.
So, we know that speed is an SEO ranking factor for your website. We know that customers prefer a quicker site. But why?
If you want your users to not only stay on your website, but come back to it time and time again, it’s time to up the ante and make their experience as flawless as you can.
#LBBTip – You can check your current site speed on Google Page Speed Insights
Before you look disheartened, it’s worth knowing what a “good” website speed is. According to Google, best practice is 3 seconds… but in reality, the average speed index speed is just under 5 seconds for desktop and a little over 11 on mobile.
Of course, in an ideal world you want to be close to that ‘best practice’ speed. Luckily it isn’t a lost cause – far from it!
There are a whole host of really simple changes you can make to your current website and any future updates; we’ve pulled them together in a 10 point checklist for you.
A cache is a good thing – it saves certain web resources so that they don’t have to load from square one every time. It can be super helpful for your site load… until you have too many versions of the site stored at once.
If you’re finding your site is on the slow side, try giving this a go (if you’re a WordPress user, there is even a built-in tool to do it for you).
Hefty images take up a lot of bandwidth on your site which, as a result, slows things down. Optimise them by making sure they are never any larger than they need to be; essentially, don’t ever upload it larger than it is going to be displayed on the website. It’s just a waste of your resources.
Similarly to your image size, high-resolution images can be detrimental to your loading times.
While it may seem more professional to have the highest resolution images across your site, most desktops won’t even be able to pick up that level of resolution. Lower it and watch your site speed amp up in response.
The file format you choose when uploading content to your site is very important if you want to speed up your website and boost your SEO.
As a general rule, JPEG files are best for photographs while PNGs are better for graphics. Avoid a TIF file for online use; their resolution is far too high and will drag down your loading times.
You can optimise the various codes on your website to speed up your loading times. This could include removing commas, spaces and any other unnecessary characters, as well as getting rid of code comments, formatting and unused codes.
The aim is to make it easier for a browser to read your data so that they can load your resources far quicker.
Redirects are the ultimate SEO enemy.
Simply put, a redirect takes your reader away from the page they want and takes them a further step from the “thing” they need. It isn’t hard to see why this would frustrate your potential customers!
The most common redirect is the 301 redirect. This is a permanent redirect, and it lives in the place of a page that no longer exists. Although these can be important, they will also slow your site down considerably.
Your server response time is impacted by:
You should aim for a server response time below 200ms – so, look at each of these points and consider whether any are presenting issues for you. For example, do you need more memory? Are your database queries too slow? Is your routing holding you up?
Find the problem and fix it.
Broken links are crucial to take care of but easy to fix. They can be found in a range of places, including:
Here’s a handy blog on how to identify broken links on your website. They are not to be underestimated!
It might not even be your website slowing you down… it could be your content management system (CMS).
A bulky CMS with loads of different resources and tools to download is only going to put extra pressure on your website. Often these ‘nifty extras’ are actually unnecessary; they’re more of a hindrance than anything.
Have a look at your CMS and decide whether it fits the bill. If not, the options for different ones are endless.
Although mobile website usage is constantly on the up, the value of above the fold content is still relevant. Your website may appear quicker to your visitor if you code the site to prioritise this above the fold content.
You can do this by making sure any elements above the fold are also at the start of your HTML code – that way, the browser will download and render them first.
Of course!
We appreciate that *tech* may not be your strong suit, and that’s why we offer a range of SEO services to help your current or new website. Whether you’re looking for training or our team to take over the task, we’re here to help.
Wow – that’s the end of our SEO Support Series! We hope you’ve found it useful; we’ve loved writing it. Please do drop us a line if you want to chat about any of the topics further. Thank you!
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